Its in our opinion that pre-season testing times simply don’t matter. Very rarely are all the teams running on the same track, on the same day, in the same weather, with the same testing agenda. That is especially true this year as a majority of the teams make the switch over to Bridgestone tyres. We also see a bunch of other changes this year as drivers play musical chairs and customer teams are playing a fun game called, “stick your engine in our rear.”

But with that being said, we’re now only 17 days away from the first race of the year. The teams get one more pre-season practice run tomorrow as Williams and Spyker finish up at Circuit de Catalunya, Spain and everyone else will run at Bahrain. After that, its time to pack up the trucks and head down-under mate! Hope you all are getting excited, its going to be a hell of a year.

I tried to race at Toro Rosso but there were some uncertainties there, so I decided to go for certain for the third driver role. And I am going to race in the States for sure.

Sounds like Robert isn’t all that excited about being demoted to a test driver roll again after getting to race the RB2 in the last 3 races of the 2006 season when Klien lost his Red Bull race seat.

It is implied that Robert will be combining the rolls of both the Red Bull test driver and a race driver in the Champ Car series. Just last week he was at Sebring International in Florida testing with Minardi Team USA. MTU is owned by former Minardi F1 team owner/boss, Paul Stoddart. In 2005 Doornbos raced 8 Grand Prix for Minardi F1.

So, you ask, “how does this affect Scott Speed?” Well, I’ll tell you… If Doornbos, unlike Klien, is happy racing in Champ Car, that means that he won’t continue to pursue the STR race seat. With Doornbos out of the picture, that leaves one less FIA Superlicensed driver competing to drive the Ferrari-powered and Newey-designed (?) car.

I am surprised that they don’t have the McLaren “Viking horns” on the side of the air intake. I am glad that they have not incorporated the bi-plane front wing element though.

For those curious, Metro (a new sponsor this year), bills themselves as, the world’s largest newspaper. Speaking of newspapers, don’t forget to check out the Red Bulletin online this year during the season.

What a bunch of crap. For as long as they are making us wait for this livery, the damn thing better be holographic!

I think what makes it worse is that Jenson Button only managed three turns at Barcelona’s Catalunya circuit in the new car before it decided to take a little nap out on the track. According to itv:

Within seconds the car stopped and had to be towed back to the pits – but the delay was only a minor inconvenience and Button was back out again soon afterwards to begin a series of short shakedown runs.

Not that big of a deal, but still not what you are wanting to happen on launch day.

While we were away, Renault had one of the most “successful” launches to date. The R27 looks to be a remarkable progression from last year’s championship winning car. If you remember, we managed to get a sneak peek at the car a couple of weeks ago. Though it kept an all blue and yellow paint job. Renault was keeping us guessing as to how the new title sponsor’s, ING, colors would be incorporated into the car.

After seeing the photos, all I can say is, “wow.” For those of you that don’t remember you childhood art classes, blue and orange are complimentary colors on the color wheel. And in this case, they really make the car pop!

Video from the launch event in Amsterdam:

Apparently there are some folks out there that don’t care too much for the new livery, check out this image found on one of the boards after the launch:

For more info check out itv’s coverage of the launch.

Not to be outdone by the other German engine provided F1 team, BMW-Sabuer also chose Velencia, Spain as their location of choice to launch ther F1.07. This season’s livery doesn’t change much from last year as BMW has retained their major sponsors.

Mario Theissen and company are looking to build on last year’s surprising (to me at least) results, scoring two podium finishes. Nick Heidfield and the man most consider to be 2006’s Rookie of the Year, Robert Kubica, will be watching their backs though as 19 year old Sebastian Vettel is looking to elbow his way from being a test driver to getting a race seat.

According to Autosport, Kubica is already having some growing pains with the new package though, especially the Bridgestone tyres:

You have to drive really smooth with these tyres. At least with our car I struggled with stability on braking, which was causing a lot of problems on the entry to corners. So if nothing has changed in the car, then probably you will not see any more driving from me as aggressive as I was last year.

More info can be found at the BMW-Sauber site. They also have a email reminder service for up coming races.